Entrepreneur opening RV rental at Bozeman airport

Intended to take into account more youthful grown-ups, Blacksford originator Jonathan Distad said he went to his plan of action for the organization from a tech foundation, considering client benefit.

The thought for the organization came to Distad when he was experiencing difficulty finding a RV to lease for a family excursion. He’d need to head out the distance to a place like Seattle or Denver to get what he needed, he said.

He started looking into the rental RV market, calling renters across the country. They told him that many of their RVs ended up in Montana and in Yellowstone National Park. Data shows heavy RV usage in the area: The University of Montana’s Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research estimated visitors spent $22 million on RV and campgrounds and $42 million on auto rentals in Yellowstone and the Southwest regions.

In one day alone, Distad said he counted more than 120 RVs in Yellowstone, not counting the ones in private RV parks.

Seeing the need for an RV rental company, Distad contacted Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport Director Brian Sprenger to see if the airport would be a good home for the business. Disted already owns two other companies in town, Zinovo and Big Sky CoWork, and he knew Bozeman was a good startup environment. It ended up being a good fit, and Distad said the company will start renting out RVs around Memorial Day weekend.

“Everything people don’t like about the RV industry, we’re fixing from a customer service perspective,” he said.

This means digitizing RV tutorials, to get people out of the door and into their RVs in 30 to 40 minutes rather than three or four hours, he said. They’ll also offer an all-inclusive fee for the RVs, with amenities like unlimited mileage, free Wifi, a parks pass and more. The RVs will be bought new each year, and they will cost $400 to $500 a night or $1,800 to $2,000 a month to rent for six months.